Bill O'Reilly Scumbag

He's done it now. Keith Olbermann has taken off the gloves, and he lands one squarely on the one they call Bill O'Reilly.

Abraham Lincoln did not shoot John Wilkes Booth, Titanic did not sink a North Atlantic iceberg, and Fox News is neither fair nor balanced. These are simple historical facts intelligible to all adults, most children, and some of your more discerning domesticated animals. But not to Bill O

OLBERMANN: Abraham Lincoln did not shoot John Wilkes Booth. Titanic did not sink a north Atlantic iceberg. And FOX News is neither fair nor balanced. These are facts intelligible to all adults, most children, and some of your more discerning domesticated animals. But not, as the third story on the COUNTDOWN prove yet again, not to Bill-O.

OLBERMANN: The guilty pleasure offered by the existence of Bill O‘Reilly is simple but understandable, 99 times out of 100, when we belly up to the Bill-O bar of bluster, nearly every time we partake of the movable falafel feast he serves us nothing but comedy, farce, slapstick, unconscious self-mutilation, the Sideshow Bob of commentators forever stepping on the same rake, forever muttering the same grunted, inarticulate surrender, forever resuming the circle that will take him back to the same rake. The Sisyphus of morons, if you will. But this is the 100th time out of 100. It is not funny at all. Bill O‘Reilly has, for the second time in under eight months, slandered at least 84 dead American servicemen. He has turned them again from victims of the kind of atrocity our country has always fought against into perpetrators of that kind of atrocity. He has made these Americans into war criminals. They are dead and have been dead for 61 years. They cannot defend themselves against O‘Reilly. We will have to do it for them.

Last October Bill O‘Reilly railed against a ruling that more photos from the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq might be released. His guest on his program was Wesley Clark. Clark is a retired four-star general, was for four years supreme allied commander of NATO in Europe. First in his class at West Point, wounded in Vietnam, earned the Bronze star, the Silver Star and has streets named for him in Alabama and in Kosovo. Therefore, naturally O‘Reilly knows much more about the military than General Clark does. Clark defended the release of the additional Abu Ghraib photos saying we need to know what happened and to correct it. O‘Reilly lectured him and concluded that there had always been atrocities, even by Americans in war.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL O‘REILLY, “THE O‘REILLY FACTOR”: General, you need to look at the Malmady Massacre in World War II in the 82nd airborne.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: It was a remarkable mistake. The Belgian town of Malmady did lend its name to one of the most appalling battlefield war crimes of the 20th century. But O‘Reilly‘s implication that the Americans committed it was entirely backwards. Americans, most of them, members of the Battery B of the 285th Fuel Artillery Observation Battalion, surrendered to German Panzer troops and were then shot by their captures by the S.S. Yet O‘Reilly had implied that the Americans had massacred these Germans in this one stark moment of the Battler of the Bulge. And he used this Alice through the looking glass view of history to somehow rationalize Abu Ghraib while trying to dress down a four-star American general.

Still it could have been a mistake, we make them. Even historians do. O‘Reilly had not explicitly called the Americans the war criminals of Malmady. Our war troops, too, were accused of crimes against prisoners in the Second World War. It was assumed last year that he had simply made a foolish error and though he got beaten up appropriately in some places, it was all largely dismissed as merely that, a mistake.

Then came this Tuesday night, again O‘Reilly‘s guest was General Wes Clark. This time the topic was the apparent murder of Iraqi civilians at Haditha. That O‘Reilly was dismissive of that event should be no surprise, that he should have described as the real crime of Iraq the events of Abu Ghraib, should be no surprise of those who know of his willingness to jettison his most important beliefs of yesterday for the expediencies and the ratings of today, but that he should have brought up Malmady again, that was a surprise.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

O‘REILLY: In Malmady, as you know, U.S. forces captured S.S. forces who had their hands in the air and they were unarmed and they shot them down. You know that. That‘s on the record. Been documented.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: Thus was the full depth of Bill O‘Reilly‘s insult to the American debt of World War II made clear. The mistake of last October was not some innocent slip nor misrembered history. This was the way O‘Reilly understood and thus, this way it had to be. No errors corrected, no apologies offered, no stopping the relentless tide of bull even briefly enough to check one fact.

The facts of Malmady are terrifying as described by Michael Reynolds in his painstakingly detailed article from a 2003 issue of “World War II” magazine. One week before Christmas, 1944, 139 U.S. soldiers, most of them from the 285th Field Artillery, encountered the German comf (ph) group, Piper, the leading formation of the German first S.S. Panzer Division, one of only two German units in the entire war which actually carried Adolf Hitler‘s name. The American were overrun. The 11 of the 139 soldiers were killed in the very short battle of Malmady, two more were killed as they tried to flee, seven escaped, six became prisoners of war. The other 113 Americans, nearly all of whom had surrendered outright, were ordered to assemble in an open field next to a restaurant, the Cafe Bodarue (ph). What happened next has been attributed to many things, a cold-blooded decision by that unit Panzer commander, Colonel Joachim Piper, that he could not handle the prisoners, or an unjustifiable overreaction to some kind of escape attempt or simply horrible mass murder.

Within 15 minutes the S.S. Colonel or someone directly under him had ordered his men to shoot the unarmed American POWs. The bodies at Malmedy were not found until a month later. There were 84 of them, all American soldiers, more than half shotgun wounds to their heads. Six had received fatal blows to the head, nine were found with their arms still raised above their heads. The fact that O‘Reilly got these horrible facts completely backwards twice offended even his usually compliant viewers. From his program Wednesday night:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

O‘REILLY: Don Caldwell, Fort Worth, TX. Bill, you mentioned that Malmady as the site of an American massacre during World War II. It was the other way around, the S.S. shot down U.S. prisoners.”

In the heat of the debate with General Clark, my statement wasn‘t clear enough, Mr. Caldwell. After Malmady, some were executed by American troops.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: Wrong answer. When you are that wrong, when you are defending Nazi war criminals and pinning their crimes on Americans and you get caught doing so twice, you‘re supposed to say I‘m sorry, I was wrong, and then you‘re supposed to shut up for a long time. Instead, FOX washed its transcript of O‘Reilly‘s remarks Tuesday. Its Web site claims O‘Reilly said in Normandy, when, as you heard, in fact, he said in Malmedy.

The rewriting of past reporting worthy of George Orwell has now carried over into such online transcription services as Burell‘s and Factiva. Whatever did or did not happen later in supposed or actual retribution, the victims at Malmedy were Americans, gunned down while surrendering by Nazis in 1944 and again Tuesday night and Wednesday night by a false patriot who would rather be loud than right.

In Malmedy, as you know, Bill O‘Reilly said on the air Tuesday night in some indecipherable attempt to defend the events of Haditha, “U.S. forces captured S.S. forces who had their hands in the air and were unarmed and they shot them dead. You know that, that‘s on the record and documented.” The victims in Malmedy in December 1944 were Americans, Americans with their hands in the air, Americans who were unarmed. That‘s on the record and documented, and their memory deserves better than Bill O‘Reilly. We all do.

Comments

OUCH!
Damn, he really kicked it up a notch. However in light of the fact that the average viewer of O'R factor is mentally retarded, it hardly seems worth the effort. Who cares is some asshole is spouting bulshit, people like O'R have been around forever, the worst we can do is pay attention to idiots like him, which gives them some auro of legitimacy.

Same goes for the intelligent design croud, especially as everyone knows that the world was really created by the Flying Spagetti Monster.

Like the ideologues who control the White House, like all ideologues, Bill O'Reilly is incapable of being wrong or changing course, no matter what the objective situation.

It's a type of insanity. It's why the Germans and Japanese could not stop what they started before it destroyed them. It is why Bush and the neo-con traitors will not stop until the nation is destroyed. They can't stop. They are in the grip of an ideological madness, as we all are as long as they have control.

Thank you for posting this clip, I wish we could get the whole country to see this. I also wonder what Gen. Clark's response was to B.O. when he pressed him on Malmady... I hope Gen. Clark set him straight.

The FOX website changes the transcript to read Normandy instead of Malmedy. But then O'Reilly discusses the Malmedy bit on his response to the viewer's email. It seems that the FOX viewers are not very discerning if FOX feels that they can get away with this farce.

"Sisyphus of morons": enough said. Possibly the most eloquent description of the man. I think he will need surgery to remove the foot from his mouth although it may be beyond the ability of modern medicine. And as for Fox altering the transcript, the disgust Olbermann's face reflects my own, That isn't journalism, it's fantasy.

O'Reilly and those of his ilk rely on the short attention span of their audiences. This latest gaff is particularly irresponsible, and might actually do some damage to his base, but who knows? The higher profile the corrections, the better. The "liberal" media needs to take the helm on occasion to prevent the spread of O'Reilly diarrhea.

Bill O'Reilly is an editorial commentator. We are in a serious crisis concerning the processing of information in this country. Opinion has totally taken over the transmission of the news. This is a transgression committed by both the right and the left. The fact that half of people in this country turn to O'Reilly for the "real" news is as frightening as the other half that turns to The Daily Show for the same reason (despite the fact that Jon Stewart is infinitely more intelligent and compassionate than O'Reilly). We are a lazy culture. News should be a non-biased reporting of the events which unfold in the world. It is up to the individual to be thoughtful about this information. The fact that we have almost no sources of unbiased reporting is our fault, not any puppet masters. I love The Daily Show and I watch it way more than The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. I'm part of the problem. The responsible choice would be to stop watching the former and start watching the later...

Ok, I grant that Bill O is an asshat of the first degree. But why did Clark not speak up during the two chances he had? Someone like Clark, with his education & experience must have known even the vaguest of details about the massacre.

"Someone like Clark, with his education & experience must have known even the vaguest of details about the massacre."

Frankly I find this more disappointing than O'Reilly being an idiot, which is to be expected. I like Clark, although his albino appearance is a bit freaky. But his staff should have done research on this issue from the last time O'Reilly used it to (incorrectly) shut his mouth, and he should have had a prepared reply. That's just basic.

Clark has it a bit difficult. It's hard for a soldier to speak out against battlefield atrocities, even though he knows he should. It's like the blue shield cops share - you don't want to completely paint the bad guys as bad guys, because they wear the uniform. So I imagine he was more than a bit relieved to have a story - even a false one - to use as a sort of softening blow / historical justification of this kind of stuff.

That said, we did commit some pretty atrocious acts during WWII. But the world was different back then. Not many front-page pictures of the victims of the Dresden fire bombing, for example. And the propaganda machines did a great job of painting the Germans as 'evil huns'. Today, for better and for worse, our enemy is completely humanized. Which presents a historical challenge: if no major war has ever been won without resorting to cruel and inhuman tactics, are we doomed to lose just to save face?

ouch but i don't don't think bill cares much about something like that - he's to goddamn stubborn. and speak up against him... from what i've seen he just starts talking and doesn't stop until the other one gives up or the time is over.

It's possible Clarke just wanted to avoid the inevitable result of contradicting O'Reily on a matter of fact--getting his mic cut and getting told to shut up. In that forum, he has no way to show that his version of the facts is the one that aligns with reality, so it really is a waste to say so.

Holy mother of...
Towards the end of that I swear he was gonna burst into tears, I'm not surprised at it either. What an incredibly moving tackle on one of the most smug and incompetent political commentators to date.

The US has known sieges of know-nothingism and nativism in cyclical fashion. When the hope engendered in the 60s went up in smoke, the next cycle would not come around until about 2020. At which point BO should be retired and Fox News history -- sad history. Like the KKK.

Wow, I think I had to brush some spittle off my shirt after watching that! And I think this is the kind of venting we need to hear more from the progressive media (I do a fair amount of it myself, in writing, at the blog). Now that expression "the Sisyphus of morons" is going into my quote book.

News update, for those who don't habitually check these things: the military cleared the soldiers in the Haditha matter.

Frankly I'm not sure how to feel about that. If they did act improperly they should be punished. But I can't help but wonder. The people claiming that the soldiers just executed these people without cause obviously have their own agenda to push. Who do you believe in this matter?

Anyone remember that Senator who was claiming racism after she got into a scuffle with the Capitol Hill policeman? She was on a bunch of talk shows, even Danny Glover stood beside her and talked about how horribly racist our country is. Then the police threatened to take her to court ... and she shut right up.

Sometimes the conspiracy theory that sounds wacko is wacko. And we have to keep an open mind.

As much as I hate Bill O, there's something about Olbermann that just grates with me.. he tries way too hard. Every attempt at humor and seriousness just comes across as desperate. I'm not defending Bill O at all, just saying that Olbermann is annoying as hell

beouwlfg//I don't like Olbermann's tone much more than I like O'Reilly's. I've only seen a few clips on the web, so I'm no expert.

I agree that O'Reilly is an ass, but I think that Olbermann sinks almost to O'Reilly's level in his attacks.//

You've got to be kidding me! I never watch O'Reilly, but I was just flipping through the channels and decided to watch a little bit of his show. He was engaged in a screaming match with his guest. It was so irritating and obnoxious. Keith Olberman is nothing like O'Reilly. He does not sink almost as low as O'Reilly.

We may not have an Eric Severide, or an Ed Murrow to denounce this kind of tabloid-TV journalism. Bill’s flagrant misspeak must not go unchallenged. Our generation has very few commentators which have garnered the trust and respect from the public like Severide, Murrow and Cronkite.

You may not like Olberman, but he, at least, took action. I applaud him.

Olberman doesn't just make stuff up, deny his own words, scream at and threaten people, or try to send a private security force after any one who says anything he doesn't like. There is NO comparison between Olberman and o'Reilly. None.

Olberman is opinionated and somewhat smarmy but O'Reilly is a professional propagandist and compulsive liar as well as a self aggrandizing authoritarian pig.

I second thomasmccay's comment. The last thing i read about Haditha was that the soldiers involved may face murder charges, and that was yesterday. There was, however, a headline stating that soldiers had been cleared in Ishaqi.

That report from Joe was immediately suspicious. How could the military reach such a decision without an investigation? Did't make any sense at all. But that is what bias will do to a person -- that is, make them hear things that were never said.

I can't add to any of the comments, but the transcript is actually incorrect in the case of the first O'Reilly mention of Malmedy. Take a look closely at that exchange, and Bill explicitly says, "General, you need to look at the Malmady Massacre in World War II and the 82nd airborne that did it."

Olbermann is great. He is the only 'real' newscaster I can actually stomach. Not only stomach but enjoy.

It is a sad state of the world when you can only stomach/ believe/trust(to a certain degree) three reporters, two being fake (Stewart/Colbert).

And like the others said, Olberman doesn't even come close to the level that O'Reilly sinks to.

While Olberman might target O'Reilly, but that is just because he is watched by so many people and is 'trusted' face by the same.

People like to be entertained, and that is why the news is turning into a Jerry Springer episode, where there is yelling and such. Even Olberman has to resort to comedic things to keep his audiences attention.

Anyways, I applaud Olberman for keeping tabs on all the idiots like O'Reilly. I really wish Stewart would start attacking the horrible news casters as well.

The amount of lieing and deception that goes on needs to get as much attention as it can get so these fools can finally be put out.

You know there is one major difference between Stewart and O'Reilly. Stewart's show is humor, it's meant as humor and it's meant as comedy. It's not prsented as fact, nor as news, but as entertainment. O'Reilly is just a blow hard who pretends to be a journalist. Stewart is a comedian being a comedian. I wish O'Reilly would stop hurting my country.

Anyone with a few neurons left in their head can tell the difference between the fake news segments of Jon Stewart's program, and those segments when it is right on, factual. Because he is being satirical at times, makes it no less truthful.

Clearly Olberman took O'reilly comments out of context. Only people who have their head full of leftist propaganda wouldn't be able to see that; which is what the problem is with the majority of the geniuses who vist this page they can't distiguish between truth and twisted truth. I realize O'reilly made a mistake when he said what he said about Malmady however, for one to say that O'reilly supports Nazi's and does not support American troops is just comepletely rediculous.

I happen to see a lot of bigots in this group. You are all assuming that the everyone sees everything the same way you do. So, if they don't they are dumb and you hate them for it. That makes you a bigot.

All of you stand up and cheer when you can stab america, but when marines are cleared of charges..not a peep. This kind of American hating propaganda stems from people like you.

Side note, I know you all mean well, just we don't see eye to eye. Which is ok vuz I cherish diversity in people and ideas...something that it seems you do not.

If you are a sick of O'Reilly's lies as I am, I suggest you do what I did. I deleted Fox News from the channels that are automatically shown on my TV. My only question is; Is the term Fox News an oxymoron?

I'm actually surprised that General Clarke is dumb enough to appear on O'Reilly more than once. It's well known that the show can't get high profile guests because the host is such an obnoxious, overbearing bully.

Jef's comment is one of the most interesting moves that is made by the conservative right. When challenged with "facts," they make the claim that criticism is because of a lack of seeing "eye to eye" and that the right cherishes "diversity in people and ideas."

Jef's notion that O'Reilly can have his own "diversity" in opinion as to what happened in Malmady is interesting. It is the same move that makes global warming a matter of "diversity" and differences of opinion.

What Jef fails to understand is that some things are just WRONG in a factual sense.

In my humble opinion sir an edited transcript such as this one;
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,197635,00.html, could and would be defined as spin by anyone with an IQ larger than their hat size, anyone other than a fox news watcher. Rest assured if you fail as a newsman you can always get a job as a contortionist, it's not everyone that can get a foot in his mouth while his head's up his ass.

I guess when you only have 100,000 people watching you every night the best way to attract viewers is to attack the #1 guy on the #1 news network. This guy is so illrelevant but I bet he really thinks it matters what he has to say.

With a name like Olbermann, he should have known it was pronounced Yockum not Jokeum. Joachim Peiper (Olbermann got the surname right), the SS leader at Malmedy, was a notoriously bad dude, even for a Nazi. He served mostly on the Russian front and was known not to take any prisioners. In one operation he had 1500 kills with three enemy wounded. I guess he had some sense of decency.
Anyway, I am a history nut and thought someone might enjoy a little background.

Whatever B O's conceived faults are, he gets his message across - discussion - and that is what it is all about. If you dont agree with him, so what? If you agree with him, so what? The problem is, that the left in politics wants everyone to agree with them - end of discussion - they are right and the rest are wrong. Take a little peep back into history - Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Franco.

I'm tired of you left wing nutjobs attacking everyone who has conservative views nad trying to force your gay climate change Kyoto agenda down are throats. Men should not take cock in the ass, period. The climate is changing, it always has, and I do not believe buying carbon credits from China is going to change that.